Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Organised.

The tall son (pictured here with his haul from the Swimming Carnival yesterday: a [close!] 3rd for backstroke, a [close] 4th for breaststroke and a well-done or 5th for butterfly) has gone off to Grade 5/6 Camp until Friday. I hope he has a great time.  He was feeling reasonably confident about this - in previous years he enjoyed the camp activities but disliked the general off-the-leash craziness from the other kids, particularly at bedtime. Climber is a child who needs his sleep.  But this year he is in a cabin with boys he says he can stand up to if they give him a hard time. The confidence of being a Grade 6, it's a good thing.

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So just me and the small son tonight. Rattling round the house together. He has popped out of bed once already to tell me that he can't get to sleep, because he has no brother to talk to.  Aw.

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Mister Fixit, meanwhile, is off at work, under his new regime of doing one week day-shift and one week evenings.  I have to tell you that, actually and unexpectedly, this is far more onerous for me than it is for him.  He gets to potter round in the daytime every second week, plus organise the odd  business-hours type stuff that he never usually gets time for, like motorbike-boot repairs.  He enjoys leisurely coffees after school drop-off.  He can take big walks so that his fitness improves.  I rather think he likes it. Meanwhile I now have to do the cooking and the washing up on those weeks, do all the babysitter organising so that the kids are cared for while I work my job 3 nights a week, plus tie myself in knots trying to fulfil their after-school sports commitments, some of which happen while I'm at work.  And this on top of organising everything else that happens in this family like grocery and washing and tidying and school admin and bills and everything, not to mention keeping on top of my tap school business! Oh sorry, did I just rant at you?  Maybe I am a touch sore because Fixit accused me on Saturday morning of NOT BEING ORGANISED; because despite directing operations so that the kids were dressed and fed, the lunches were made, the sports gear & my tap stuff assembled, while all he did was go to the chiropractor and eat breakfast, I didn't quite allow enough time to buy coffee en route and asked him if he'd get me one in the hour he had to spare before cricket. Geez, soooooo unorganised. And just quietly, it's not as much help having him there on school mornings as he might think.  I already have that routine down pat, so him bellowing secondary chivvies at the kids is just annoying really.  My primary chivvies are quite sufficient and effective, no need for an echo. Still, it's a period of adjustment.  Once I get it all together and stop having to organise everything all the time, I might relax.  We did go and see a movie together, and that was fun.

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Meanwhile, you'll be pleased to know that the expensive cat repairs have totally paid off. Basil and Fixit, working as a team, caught a mouse we found sunning itself on the loungeroom windowsill.  Basil was mostly in charge of small space retrieval, Fixit was in charge of hefting wall units around and whacking the mouse unconscious with a heavy ornamental glass plate.  My sister was in charge of action photography and no-one was in charge of dusting behind the wall unit.

12 comments:

  1. EVERY TIME WITH THE WRONG LOGIN, CURSES. Apologies. Quiet rant. Where was I?

    Look at his feral eyes! (Basil, not Mr Fixit). You have UNLEASHED THE BEAST. (Basil, not Mr Fixit).

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  2. haha, that mouse pic was even funnier with that story behind it. The "basil and Fixit' team haha. And don't even start about the rant, I don't bother ranting here anymore, as the echo is deafening.....

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  3. That is one expensive mouse.

    More than entirely 'get' the rant. Sod the organised. Go for delegate. Or maybe you could freak Fixit out with UBER organisation and draw up two lists. One for each of the shift weeks. Using this method of hyper organisation you delegate accordingly.

    Echos in the morning drive me 'round the bloomin' bend.

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  4. Yes look at Basil's eyes! Ohhhh, there is the hunter within.

    Sorry to hear about your man being a man, they can't help themselves. I don't think any of the ladies reading your post here will not be able to relate. Not if they have a man in their lives they have to deal with. Especially the helpful kind of man, the one that kindly tells you where you are going wrong, and just want to help you sort yourself out...

    Where's that knife...?

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  5. And why is it your job to be organised, anyway? I get so ranty about the quiet work that just gets done - it was the thing I hated the most about working in admin, for example. If you do your job properly (as admin worker or mother/parent) no one notices it.

    I lost it at Steven a while back. We were going to an event together, and he had just left all the present buying, finding the address, getting there, etc up to me. Highly unusual, he's the organised one I'm afraid :P But google maps told me to go to the wrong place, and he asked me why I didn't check it. There was some not-quite yelling of if he cared that much, maybe HE should have checked, or are his arms painted on?

    Frustrating.

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  6. Can Fixit not do some food prep, washing or housework during the day? Or the shopping maybe? At least equivalent to the time he would have spent doing household tasks at night while you are working. Just a thought. You both have a lot on your plates it seems.

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  7. I LIKE Janet's idea.

    Or you could get snarky and write a list of ALL the things you did, next to a list of the two things he did.

    Sigh. I'm slightly embarassed to report that my hubby, now semi-retired is awesome at doing all the stuff. Alot of the time.

    I am one grateful cow, I confess.

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  8. Geez, I'm with Climber on the disliking the general off-the-leash craziness from the other kids at bedtime. It was one of the things I hated most about boarding school when I first went. I hope he has a great camp this year and can indeed stand up to the boys in his cabin if required!

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  9. Oooh, Stomper, here was me turning to your blog as a reliable source of all things nice and kind. And then you post a mouse-killing story, with illustrations! I shall treat you with more caution in future.

    (Must be hard to be a cat. On the one or two occasions when our cats have caught a mouse, they get shouted at!)

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  10. Basil has yet to kill a baby snake, the way Meggsie did. But it is a good start, and I don't suppose you have baby snakes around your way.

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  11. Oh your rant makes me want to rant! Rob is VERY organized, so sometimes by comparison, I seem not to be. But (mostly) everyone gets where they need to be when they need to be there with what they need to have when they get there. He is much better at it than I am, but I'm not AWFUL.

    We have a nine week summer vacation from school beginning in June. I just signed J.T. up for a week at 4-H camp. A three hour drive away from home. SOB. I'm not sure that I am mature enough to that! But I'm so glad Climber adjusts and sorts himself out at these camps. I'm hoping J.T. can do the same.

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Don't let the cat get your tongue.